Hogga's perfect Easter - surrounded by broads.

Norfolk Broads that is. The medieval digging for peat in this area has left ditches and sunken areas which have filled with water; these are interlinked by the major rivers and canals around, forming a space of reed-fringed waterways that extends through Norfolk in a North-South band passing a few miles to the East of Norwich. And from April through to September these waterways are liberally covered with a great profusion of boats. Families hire the boats - often large cabin cruisers - and chug slowly around, stopping here and there to visit local villages and, more importantly, local pubs.

It's a strange old week at work right now. School holidays of course - so many people have taken off for sunnier climates leave anyway. The weather in Norfolk is still a little cool for what is essentially spring - in fact last week someone was taking bets on us having a White Easter - and so I decided that I'd not take any extra leave. More likely mid-year when I'll head to SA for a visit. Nevertheless there still remained a few days to fill with something unusual, so we headed for a little town called Acle and hopped aboard the "Pearl Horizon 2", which is a 32-foot cruiser with a breakneck top speed of around 7 knots (and that is too fast for the Broads, where speed cops patrol in little rubber duck Zephyrs).


My cruising companion helped me with the tricky task of mooring stern-on in a vast wallowing tub of aboat with absolutely no rearward visibility - and as you can see I did a passable job, albeit with much salty nautical language and indeed some military oaths not often heard in these parts. Here we are moored in Ranworth Broad, a little offshoot of the river Bure between Acle and Horning. Lots of bird life, including a confused looking black swan in between loads of white ones. No mammals spotted except of course the familiar squat and tattooed forms of Homo Touristensis.

One amazing thing here in Norfolk is the large amount of hippies, gypsies, fen people and general Woodstock refugees that pop out of the reeds and marshes on bank holidays. Men wearing earrings, gold rings on most fingers, greying ponytails and a mix of denim and camouflage. Of course it is my considered belief that anyone who has been obliged to wear camouflage for a living will never be able to wear it as a fashion statement. Nevertheless, we seem to have a strange subculture here that I've not seen anywhere else in England.


Still, a nice time was had by all. A couple of beaut sunsets, some relaxed cruising and lots of bacon and eggs. So much so, in fact, that I am obliged to once again endure the rigours of the Atkins Diet lest I become unable to fit through the door of my new cottage. Hopefully the present uneasiness and general state of worry in our restructuring HR department will soon be over and we can all get back to working and, in my case, waddling to and from the gym.